Sad, depressed and frustrated....

[Sam25]

Hi everyone...

Well as some of you may know, i had a small group of burundi frontosas, that was until the day before yesterday...

My LFS got some large frontosas in for me and had them for sale at a very good price ( i had not even gave my word i would buy any, i merely stated interest in wanting some more, that shows the relationship i have with them )

But there was one problem and that was that my ph in my cyphos tank was about 7.4 with my fronnies doing abosolutely fine....

And the ones at the LFS were at 8.4 so i was givin some ph/kh up to put in my tank...

Now i was told to put more then i thought wise in over a period of a few hours, but i decided to only put 2 teaspoon fulls in my 60gallon tank...

I then went out only to come home to find all the frontosas dead, and the bristlenose struggling....

Now what really annoys me is my mum happen to go to the shops today and meet one of the fishshop owners and told her what had happen...only to be told that i HAD done the wrong thing and raised it too quick...

I will be going down there tomorrow to see what may come of this...

I doubt i will get any replacements, but i feel that i should at least get a further discount on my next big purchase...

Only changes that occurred in the tank in the last week was i did about a 30% water change...i did not clean the filter at all or anything else...just the water change and moved some of the rocks around....

Now i know i must have done something right in the last few months as i measured the dead fish and my **use to be ** dominant male had grown from bout 3.5 inches to just over 5inches and the females had grown quite abit....

I have now givin up on my dream of owning breeding frontosas...i just cant afford any more fronts at the time being unless they're very very cheap...
Well thats it for now...just had to vent my anger and dissapointment...

Cheers,

Sam

[Sigmaphile]

Sam,
Sorry for your loss. It is always hard when you loose fish you have had for a while, especially when they are not ordinary fish.

I think you will have NO CHANCE of making a LFS accountable for what they say (or don't say), or the fish they sell.
I have tried recently and got NOWHERE.

Hope you have more luck than me.

[unicorn57]

i think we can all say that we have been in the same boat at one stage or another.
so did you get some of the new one as well??

it might have been shock that effected them both ways.... the new one droping down to your ph level and the raising of the ph for your ones.

your really damed if you do and your damed if you dont.

hind sight is a wonderful thing....... maybe if you had the tank space put the new one's into a tank of their own at 8.4 and let it come down by its self till it got to your level and then swap them over into your fronie tank.

as lucky phil said i dont like your chances of getting any joy from the lfs, but hey give it a go.......

if it was some $2.00 live bearers i wouldnt care but when were talking fronies id be on their door step when they open.....

chin up
think of it this way you havent lost some fish you've gained experence.

[dammwoman]

If you've been a good customer to that store I think they would at least try to help out a bit.
If nothing else but good customer relations.
Don't know why they would have advised as they did.
I would think slowly acclimatizing the new fish to your exicting PH would have been a wiser move but whats done is unfortunately done.
Chalk it up to experience and better luck next time.
Chers Linda

[Cichlidkeeper]

Yeah mate sorry about the losses. I would suggest in future follow your gut feel and if unsure turn to the forum for advice not someone from a lfs. You will generally always getter a broader range of better advice from here than most lfs.

[Sam25]

No i did not get any of the new fronnies...


I thought it would be best if i adjusted my water first ...

I have went down the fishshop and it was blamed on the water ( Bit of ammonia and nitrite )... Doesnt make alot of sense as they were fine for the last week ...

I have givin up on frontosas for now..

But if anyone in NSW has cheap african cichlids or fronnies for sale please let me know...i need to fill this tank up again... :(

[here fishie fishie]

I would ask them, how do u raise the ph? I would like to know if they give the right answer.

[quote:246e58f5ee]Now i was told to put more then i thought wise in over a period of a few hours, but i decided to only put 2 teaspoon fulls in my 60gallon tank... [/quote:246e58f5ee]
Is this exactly what you did? Did you do a water change with this?

When raising ph, you can use Sodium Bicarbonate at a rate of 30 grams per 100 litres of fresh water add to the aquarium. This is considered a gradual increase to.
[b:246e58f5ee]You should only ever raise the ph when doing a water change.[/b:246e58f5ee]
The reason is, whenever you raise the ph of tank water, free ammonium will be instantly formed.

Frenchy :D

[Sam25]

No i didnt change any water...but i followed the advice of the LFS..

I understand that everone needs to make a profit but i do feel betrayed in a way...

I should not have been told to do something that could risk the life of the other fish...

[Paul]

If you had ammonia present in your tank then raising the PH will make that ammonia much more toxic. Ammonia present in an aquarium becomes alot more toxic as the PH rises.

Please have a look here for very detailed information on this:

http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/ammonia-toxicity.html

What you have described is a fairly common incident. When you got the advise from your local fish shop, they probably assumed your ammonia was under control, as it should be in an established aquarium.

Sorry to hear about your loss, but I don't think you can legitimately feel too aggrieved in these circumstances sorry.

And whether the advise given is accurate or not is beside the point anyway. You are responsibe for what you do to your fish, and taking the advise of one person from a LFS is not really good research.  You'll always have a couple of experts at your LFS, but there are likely to be a few staff that have no idea. At my LFS there is only one guy that knows how to identify the cichlids, and when he's not working I have to identify the cichlid for them so they can charge me the right price!

Good luck with your future fish endeavours and maybe do a bit more research next time. You've learnt the hard way, but at least you've learnt.

Paul is correct, an established aquarium should be under control, and I have had to move fish from 8.5ph to 7ph, done over about 30 minutes, but they all survive.

Not sure what you where using to raise your ph aswell? What was the product? becuase depending on the size of the tank, I cant think of anything that with 2 teaspoons will make that much of a difference to your tank.

Not a tank big enough for frontosa.

[here fishie fishie]

Cough, Cough.
[quote:59221d0a24]The reason is, whenever you raise the ph of tank water, [b:59221d0a24]free ammonium will be instantly formed[/b:59221d0a24]. [/quote:59221d0a24]

Paul, you ammonia reading can still be [b:59221d0a24]zero[/b:59221d0a24] at the start, before raising the ph of tank water. What you said is a common thing, but not always correct on why. [b:59221d0a24]When you raise the ph of a tank free ammonium is instantly formed[/b:59221d0a24], the higher the ph the more ammonia is converted from the built-up ammonium. So you end up with an Ammonia problem [b:59221d0a24]because you have created a heap of Ammonium[/b:59221d0a24].

Established tank or not, it may not cope. It is always a risk. Hence the need to do water changes when raising the ph. LFS or forum watch what you read or hear people.

[quote:59221d0a24]Paul is correct, an established aquarium should be under control, and I have had to move fish from 8.5ph to 7ph, done over about 30 minutes, but they all survive. [/quote:59221d0a24]
Wrong on the established part.
Do you mean it was 7ph, then you went 8.5ph? If so you were lucky, nothing else. Just like everyone else who has done it from time to time including myself.
I do agree 2 teaspoons isn't much for a tank that size, knowing some of the products on the market.

Frenchy :D

[Paul]

here fishy fishy,

I have never heard of "free ammonium" being instantly formed when the PH rises. Could you please supply a reference to this fact? I would be interested to read about it. I have never heard of such a thing before. I'll be happy to stand corrected :)

[mickvick]

I have never heard of that either, so I would be interested in a reference too.

Also, it is my understanding that ammonium is far less toxic to fish than ammonia.

Michael

[gasnitro]

i agree also about raising ph the ammonia can spike why would you have 7.4 for frontys in the first place :? . did you do a water change with raising  ph up. what sort of filtration do you have?
anyway sorry for your loss :(

[mickvick]

Okay, Ive re read this thread and I now know what Justin means, although I dont think he has expressed it particularly well.

Here is a layman's summary:

The total ammonia level of your tank comprises of un-ionized and ionized ammonia (NH3+, NH4+ respectively) The un-ionized form is toxic to fish, the ionised form, less toxic.

The ratio between ionized and un-ionized ammonia is dependent upon, and changes with, the pH of the water. The higher the pH the more ammonia is in the toxic form; conversely, the lower the pH the less ammonia is in the toxic form.

So in summary, what Justin is trying to say is that when you increased the pH of the water, the ratio between ionised and unionised ammonia changed resulting in an increase in the toxic form of ammonia.

So it is possible that your fish were happy when the pH was down because there was less ammonia present in its toxic form. When you increased the pH, more of the toxic form was created resulting the the death of your fish.

However, Im not sure though that Justin's advice of a water change will avert the problem because the breakdown of the Chloromine by dechlorinators during water changes also creates ammonia.

I think that the only way to safely raise the pH is to ensure that there is no ammonia present (by having a properly cycled tank with adequate filtration) in the first place.

Michael


Michael